Month 10 Day 18

Notebook entry

Six reports given, military intelligence company moving in, table of organization and equipment to intelligence, area of operations familiarization, Salim gave class, lunch with linguists, SPG-9 class, “these marines are doing it right", General Petraus, Lieut. Gen. Rodriguez coming, sing a song.

Journal entry

Had a bit of an issue with the Military Intelligence Company guys from the ANA moving into our AO.  They decided they were just going to come and not inform the Brigade, send a message, etc.  This is a bit frustrating.  They are going to just exist and the kandaks with no support relationship defined.   They are still going to report directly to the Corps.  The worry is that the kandak will misuse them.  This is a well-founded fear.

I had a pretty good meeting with the S2.  We talked about the Table of Organization, who was missing etc.  I gave him a quick rundown of what was going on in the AO.  He was really worried about having a good showing at the meeting in the morning and at the commander’s conference.   Apparently, he speaks excellent English, but he hasn’t said anything yet.  I think he’s been trying to scope me out to see if I say anything incriminating…intel guys 

I had lunch with a terps again.  We agreed that all women are the same everywhere in at least one regard.  When you are a little boy, only three feet tall, they think they can placate you for an entire day of shopping by getting you and ice cream cone.  IT’S NOT TRUE. 

After lunch Salim presented all of the information he knows about the AO to the RCT and to the new S2.  The RCT intel chief was not impressed, and came out saying ‘God bless you, sir.’ The S2 officer said that Salim was doing very well, and that we should continue to teach him along those lines, teaching him cardinal directions, where stuff is in the AO.  The S2 officer really talks a good game, he wants to get to the kandaks, wants to get the right amount of people, he clearly wants to learn what’s happening in the AO.  I’m trying not to get too excited.

After dinner we had our evening meeting. Apparently LTG Rodriguez is coming down from the Highest level of command in Afghanistan to visit.  Gen Petraus saw what we were doing with the Combined Combat Operations Center and said ‘this is the model to follow’ if only he knew that just today the Amer-Tachnique, told Dr Noori, the linguist “why don’t I say a bunch of bullshit, sing a song or dance a jig in the evening turnover meeting with the Marines and you just tell them what they want to hear.”  Now we have been tasked with flooding the CCOC with a bunch of guys who aren’t retards for the day that the general arrives to see it.  It’s easy to see how Generals get a screwed-up picture in their heads. The proof is in the output, not in how it looks, but I guess that is too much of a pain-in-the-ass to measure.

Month 9 Day 27

Notebook entry

40 reports given, leave flight, maintenance, weather, combined Combat Operations Center, Corps intelligence at Kandaks, trust and riches, 15% is 1% growth Paul Zac

Journal entry

The leave flight finally came off in the morning.  It was a contracted leave flight, so it didn’t end up sucking out a ton of our manpower. Most of the day was consumed by maintenance of gear. I gave Salim the weather. 

That Major event for the day was the major relaying the Colonel’s order that the ANA should be commanding and controlling from the combined combat Operations center.  The major took this to mean that we just need to get them over there.  He has basically said this is going to be our ditch to die in. He is willing to deprive them of fuel, water, maintenance, whatever to force them to go there.  He also wanted carrots, cell phone antennas, satellite TV, to get them there.  I still think this is wrong-headed.  What real commanding and controlling do we do at this level?  We basically just surge air assets and clear fires, both of which could really be done by the battalions, on a day-to-day level the only thing is logistical requirements filled.  There is no maneuver of ground units in the short term. Outside of the military problems there is the cultural problem that they are not going to do anything without the Generals approval.  The problem of space, where are you going to put all of the Afghans.  The problem of perception, why are you forcing your ‘equal’ partner to come to you and command and control, why aren’t you going to him? Why are you giving him capabilities, NIPR telephones and internet access, that he won’t have in the end. All of the original problems are still there.

Oddly, I just don’t really care.  There is no point fighting this, the Major wants this one and has said that he is willing to use the nuclear solution to get it because the Colonel wants it so bad.  I wonder also if he sees the sunset of our tour and is ready to use ‘the nuclear option’ merely because he doesn’t think anything else will pop up that he will need it for.  We really only have about 2 months of us left, after that Advon arrives, the main body arrived, relief in place starts and we progressively transfer responsibility.

One thing I thought of last night while I was listening to my book is that trust might be a reason this country is so poor.  There was  a study overseen by Paul Zac (mentioned in Ch 3 of the Rational Optimist) which asked people a series of questions like whether they believed people would return a dropped wallet and stated that for every 15% growth in trust of the society you could increase the annual GDP growth by 1%, that is HUGE.  PerhapsSalim’s comments about the need to lock up everything and the thick walls around everything down here are telling. 

I am just tired.  The viritue and vice of the same-old-routine is that it is the same-old-routine, nothing gets better or changes.

Month 9 Day 26

Notebook entry

41 Ciphers total, four reports given, out of the meeting, general cracking soldier going on leave, Samir Hard Drive," Afghans will not change", Capt. Arthur back from investigation.

Journal entry

Woke up with a ‘boom’ on the 25^th I hope I’m not fucked up.

On the 26^th I had to go to the morning meeting.  Only 41 ciphers totals were exchanged between the bde and all its kandaks and the corps.  Outside of the meeting there were a group of soldiers from the 3^rd kandak who were waiting for the general.  They were pissed off that their leave flight had been delayed once-again. There was one high ring-leader.  He told the General that we wasn’t going to listen to him unless he was sent on leave.  The General told him to get in the prone and when he didn’t our fat little napoleon tried to force him down and cracked him over the head as he did it.  The guy tried to run away, Sgt Salim chased him down and later on he told me that he beat the guy and that he locked him up.  Salim stated that he cried when he was finally let out. 

I found out about this when I took Salim out for lunch and he also told me that the General told him to beat some other prisoner.  Fuck, really?  Adding insult to injury.  He is the only guy here.  I asked him about Samir.  He said we was in Qandahar and that he had run off with the 2 TB hard drive with all of the map data that I had given to the section.  I asked Salim what I could do to make this better and he said.  He did not know.  He needed to get an officer.  He also said that only two of his kandaks, north MArjeh and south marjeh were sending him any info and that only one of the officer is reporting for duty.  

GySgt Young and Capt Brawny had an interesting conversation with the engineering officer that they relayed to me.  He stated that even if you were herefor another 50 years it wouldn’t matter.  The Afghan people will not change because they do not want to change.  Hmmmm.

I felt like somebody kicked a hole in my head most of the afternoon I think I ate some bad food. So I laid down and watched a movie.

Capt Arthur came back from his investigation in the evening. They had tasked him to go find out about missing ammunition at one of the Marine battalions. ETT maineffort, right sure shows with the way our staff is tasked to do whatever.

Month 9 Day 9

Notebook Entry
Trees, Afghan National Army tanker. Year round work, eves on buildings. Lone Hill. No Tree shot holes. Poles Area of operations equals shot holes.

Journal Entry
We moved from Qalat to Ghazni today

The thing that struck me as we moved through the counryside were the trees. There were orchards and rows of lovely trees. I am nor arbor day fanatic, but they seemed odd. I also noticed that where there were trees there were no holes in the road from where IEDs had gone off. I wonder if trees would be a good metric for success in this campaign, they are a tenure crop that basically says, I am going to be here for a while, I will have buy-in with the community, work hard etc. I also wonder if people are idle for less of the time if they plant trees . so many of the problems that we have in helmand are the result of idle hands. There are [migrant] workers who come in an work feverishly for the poppy harvest, ther are almost no sigacts [significant activity] during this time, and after the poppy harvest is done, then the sigacts shoot back up. needless to say there were no trees in helmand or qandahar. Along with the trees I noticed an architectural feature called a ‘Nawa’ it sounds kind of like the city. Basically it is an eave. It keeps rainfall from running down the entire mud wall and damaging it. I started to see these in qalat, toward the end of the day they petered out. As did the orchards. As soon as they did I started to see tons of shot holes in the road. We were constantly vering around them or using the dirt on the side of the road because they had blown up a culvert.

I asked the linguists about it they said it was because the people in that part of the country are just lazy and they don’t give a shit. They said at the Kabul zoo they have a [sign] thatasays don’t feed the animals at the Qandahar zoo they have a sign that says don’t fuck the animals at the Helmand zoo they have a sign that says don’t eat animal food. This is what they think of their countrymen.

I can’t help but think that it is something deeper than that. People with no hope or thought for the future.

One thing I noticed about a lot of the old villages what that they almost all have a lone high-hill with I evidence of some fortification on top once or currently. I am sure these would have been ideal stops for the caravans, but it lets you know what an isoloated and war-torn country this was even then

We traveled into the polish battlespace. We are actually staying on a polish base. There are always a few Americans around I got connected with an army MSGT and she set us up with a decent place to stay

I had a run around base and on this ‘small’ army FOB I nearly got lost.

Had a decent dinner in the chow hall until the indirect fire warning went off. Then I spent the next hour in an air raid shelter with an army SgtMaj and an air fore retiree. They told me that the polish owned this battlespace, but that the us army was here to mentor them. So the americans are mentoring the poles who are mentoring the ANA. They complained about a lot of the same issues that we have to deal with. Stealing, ineffetive chain of command, little regard for human life. It looks good on paper to have the polish running their own battlespace, but in fact I am starting to see why there were so many shot holes in the road.

What is old is new again, an old fort re-purposed as a new fort.

An old minaret outside Ghazni

One of the innumerable 'jingle trucks' so named because of the jingling decorations that festoon them.

If only the Russians could see it now, Polish Hinds ready to fly air support for us.

Month 9 Day 7

Notebook Entry
Movement to Leatherneck

Journal Entry
I got up late because someone decided to be nice and not make the guys who were going on the convoy stand watch. That was really considerate, but it nearly put me into a panic in the morning because there were things that I really wanted to get done, and I was not able to, such as call Suzan on our anniversary.

The load up for the convoy went fine, so did the order. The ANA [Afghan National Army] predictably showed up late. The move went pretty smoothly, I got us well out of the high-traffic areas and we cruised at aout 30Mph through the mostly open desert. The ANA stopped once for a lost fuel can which became an impromptu prayer time. Everything went pretty well until right outside of Leatheneck. Though my conops [Concept of Operations plan] got approved by UMCC [Unified Movement Control Center] we were set to go straight through a couple of ranges. I saw this as th lead vic, steered us around the first one, then we were on the second one and my gunner said, I think we are in an impact area. I told my driver to make a b-line for the base fence.

A few minutes later I get an angry BFT [Blue Force Tracker computer] message telling me that four ranges have been closed down because of me. I told them that the conops had been approved by their UMCC.

New forcepro [Force Protection measures] made getting onto base much harder, they had redone the entrances. It took us a three tries to find the correct entrance. Being turned away first by the USMC then by the ANA commandos then finally we made it.

Once on base I had to chase around to find the order that said that the ANA were supposed to go get their new kandak and that they rated fuel wate[r], and maintenance from all the other corps en-route. Naturally the corps had no idea what we were talking about. I cornered the brigadeer general chief of staff and he promised that by 2000 we would have the order, but right now he needed to attend a very important VTC [Video teleconference] with the MoD [Ministry of Defense]. Nothing changes at this level. I am too busy to support my subordinates, I need to use the fancy american stuff.

Our impromptu prayer stop in the desert.

Month 9 Day 2

Notebook Entry
Yesterday missed class with Qais, Concept of operations all morning. Fear of Afghan National Army from Regimental Combat Team. Qais missed class today, Munir our yesterday, Afghan National Army Quick Reaction force. Provisional rifles.

Journal Entry
I worked on the ConOps [Concept of Operations-plan] all morning. I am so happy that Lekic is basically on autopilot when it comes to the roster. Though he did really annoy me with some of his data-entry, it took me almost an hour to fix some of his mistakes yestday on the spreadsheet.

The RCT s-2 [Regimental Combat Team Intelligence Officer] called about their teleconference, they didn’t know how to set it up, wanted to do it over there because it is more convenient. Capt CJ Radin nickname No Impact No Idea-CJ RADIN is a real genuine idiot. Not good for an intel guy. He wanted to know why I couldn’t come at three and I’m like dude, why can’t you come here at three. Whatever.

Capt Nowak got pissed at me again because I relayed a message from Maj Valquist about setting up billeting at LNK [Camp Leatherneck]. I said could you set up billeting at LNK? Started with a Sir and ended with a V/R,. He was annoyed because he thought I was tasking him. I wrote him back that I would try not to hurt his feelings. The guy is really hyper-emotional.

I found out that Monir, the GSU S2 [Garrison Support Unit Intelligence Officer] who has been here for 2 months went on leave yesterday. Fuck.

I am getting annoyed about the assignments that the RCT does for the new kandaks coming in. They are treating all of them engineers, recon, etc as provisional riflemen. What a waste. I pushed back, and was told by Maj Valquist that they were not attached to me. Capt Arthur says that he was there when the Maj brought this up with the RCT and was shot down, I have also heard the Maj speak on the phone about how dumb this is. Oh well, we don’t have the power.

The cherry on top was that Qais didn’t come to class. I wonder if me telling him I couldn’t do the class at Garmsir, but could at the Combine COC had anything to do with it.

All this just to get more stuff and people from Kabul.